The Flower Kings are a Swedish

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog) is a broad genre of rock music that primarily developed in the United Kingdom through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early-to-mid-1970s. Initially termed " progressive pop", the ...

band formed in 1994 by guitarist and singer-songwriter

Roine Stolt Roine Stolt (born 5 September 1956) is a Swedish guitarist, vocalist and composer. A major figure in Sweden's rock history, Stolt led two of his country's most successful progressive rock bands: Kaipa in the 1970s and The Flower Kings in the ...

. The group began as Stolt's touring band to support his third solo album ''

The Flower King ''The Flower King'' is the third solo album by Roine Stolt. The original line-up for the album consisted of Stolt (singing, vocals, electric guitar, bass guitar, Keyboard instrument, keyboards), Jaime Salazar (musician), Jaime Salazar (Drum kit, d ...

''. They continued performing after the tour and have gone on to become one of the most prolific studio recording units in progressive rock, having released over twenty hours of music spread across sixteen studio albums. Their music is similar to early

symphonic A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning ...

progressive rock groups such as

Yes Yes or YES may refer to: * An affirmative particle in the English language; see yes and no Education * YES Prep Public Schools, Houston, Texas, US * Young Eisner Scholars, in Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, and Appalachia, US * Young Ep ...

, marked by sharp dynamic changes,

polyrhythm Polyrhythm () is the simultaneous use of two or more rhythms that are not readily perceived as deriving from one another, or as simple manifestations of the same meter. The rhythmic layers may be the basis of an entire piece of music (cross-rh ...

s, heavy bass, vocal harmonies, abstract lyrics, and extended song lengths.

History

Formation

In early 1993, guitarist and singer

had written material for his third solo album ''

'' and sought musicians to perform it. He had wanted to release a

-style album for a while and felt the time was right to pursue the project. The album features Stolt on vocals, guitar, bass and keyboards; Jaime Salazar on drums; and Hasse Fröberg on vocals. It was recorded in Sweden between May 1993 and January 1994. In preparation for Stolt's concert tour to support the album's release, Stolt, Salazar, and Fröberg were joined by Stolt's brother Michael on bass and Tomas Bodin on keyboards. The five performed their first gig on 20 August 1994 at an outdoor festival in

Uppsala Uppsala ( ; ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the capital of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Loc ...

, Stolt's hometown and the city where ''The Flower King'' was recorded. After they decided to become a full-time band, they officially adopted the name The Flower Kings, named after Stolt's album. Stolt had produced a list of potential titles for the record, one of which was "The Flower King", and chose it because of its positive meaning and its reference to the

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture of the mid-1960s to early 1970s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States and spread to dif ...

era of the 1960s.

Activity

After performing a series of concerts through 1994, the band entered the studio in December 1994 to record their debut album, '' Back in the World of Adventures''. The recording process was gradual, finishing in October 1995. In 2000, Michael Stolt was replaced by

Jonas Reingold Jonas Reingold (born 22 April 1969) is a Swedish bass guitarist from Malmö. Biography Reingold started to play bass in 1986 when he subbed for a friend in the locally-famous act WIRE. The band was happy with his performance and offered him t ...

. Two years later, Salazar was replaced by Zoltan Csörsz.

Daniel Gildenlöw Daniel Gildenlöw (born 5 June 1973) is a Swedish musician and songwriter. He is best known as a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist for the progressive rock band Pain of Salvation. In the band, he is the main songwriter, lead singer, guitarist, p ...

Pain of Salvation Pain of Salvation is a Swedish progressive metal band led by Daniel Gildenlöw, who is the band's main songwriter, lyricist, guitarist, and vocalist. Pain of Salvation's sound is characterised by riff-oriented guitar work, a broad vocal range, o ...

joined the band the same year as a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist. Other contributors have included Hasse Bruniusson (

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

) and Ulf Wallander (

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

). Stolt has written the vast majority of the material the band has recorded, with Bodin contributing most of the rest. The music is best described as symphonic progressive rock, bearing a strong resemblance to the music of

King Crimson King Crimson were an English progressive rock band formed in London in 1968 by Robert Fripp, Michael Giles, Greg Lake, Ian McDonald (musician), Ian McDonald and Peter Sinfield. Guitarist Fripp remained the only constant member throughout the ...

Gentle Giant Gentle Giant were a British progressive rock band active between 1970 and 1980. They were known for the complexity and sophistication of their music and for the varied musical skills of the members. All of the band members were multi-instrument ...

, and early

Genesis Genesis may refer to: Religion * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of humankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Bo ...

, with

jazz fusion Jazz fusion (also known as jazz rock, jazz-rock fusion, or simply fusion) is a popular music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric gui ...

and

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

influences. The band's lyrics are almost uniformly positive and uplifting, affirming such values as love, peace, and spirituality, and furthering their association with Yes. Their 1999 album ''

Flower Power Flower power was a slogan used during the late 1960s and early 1970s as a symbol of passive resistance and nonviolence. It is rooted in the Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War, opposition movement to the Vietnam War. The ex ...

'' contains the eighteen-section, almost 60-minute "Garden of Dreams". In June 2007, they released '' The Road Back Home'', a compilation of remixed songs from 1994 to 2006, plus "Little Deceiver" (a previously unreleased track) and the full version of their cover of " The Cinema Show" by

. Zoltan Csörsz was replaced by new drummer Marcus Liliequist for one album, but returned for the 2007 album, '' The Sum of No Evil''. He was subsequently replaced by Erik Hammarström in 2008. In 2008, Ola Heden, previously of Reingold's side project Karmakanic, joined on guitar, vocals and keyboards. In November 2008, the band were the opening act at the Ecco Prog Fest in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

. After touring in 2008, The Flower Kings were inactive for four years. Stolt felt the band had varied levels of focus in their direction and had started to feel lost. They reunited in 2011 to work on new material after Stolt felt it was the right time and sensed eagerness from the other members to work together. This marked the arrival of German drummer Felix Lehrmann. '' Banks of Eden'', the group's eleventh album, was released in June 2012 and was recorded with analogue recording techniques and styles reminiscent of the height of vinyl records. This was followed by '' Desolation Rose'' in October 2013. The lineup of Stolt, Bodin, Reingold, Fröberg and Lehrmann played together for the last time in 2015. 2016 and 2017 saw the band members busy with other engagements. In December 2017, the first part of a career-spanning box set titled ''A Kingdom of Colours'' was released. This first box, with 10 discs, covers the period from 1995 to 2002 and includes the studio albums from ''Back in the World of Adventures'' to ''Unfold the Future''. The second box set, titled ''A Kingdom of Colours 2'' and covering the albums ''Adam and Eve'' through to ''Desolation Rose'', was released in June 2018. In September 2018, Stolt announced a new album named ''Manifesto of an Alchemist''. The album did not feature long-time keyboardist Tomas Bodin, and as such, it is credited to "Roine Stolt's The Flower King" rather than "The Flower Kings". In August of the same year, Roine Stolt presented a new band called "Roine Stolt and friends play The Flower Kings". The band featured Stolt, Fröberg and Reingold with new keyboard player Zach Kamins and new drummer Mirko DeMaio. Roine Stolt stated that he was done being in a group and wanted to tour as a solo artist like

Roger Waters George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943) is an English musician and singer-songwriter. In 1965, he co-founded the rock band Pink Floyd as the bassist. Following the departure of the group's main songwriter Syd Barrett in 1968, Waters became ...

Steven Wilson Steven John Wilson (born 3 November 1967) is an English musician. He is the founder, guitarist, lead vocalist, and songwriter of the rock band Porcupine Tree, as well as being a member of several other bands, including Blackfield, Storm Corrosi ...

. Tomas Bodin was not a part of this group and made his displeasure quite public. The band toured with Spock's Beard in November and December 2018 and continued to do shows in 2019, this time under the name "The Flower Kings Revisited". In July 2019, "Revisited" was removed from the band name, making it clear that this lineup was now "The Flower Kings". The band went on to release the double albums ''Waiting for Miracles'' in 2019 and ''Islands'' in 2020, the latter having been recorded entirely remotely during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. On 24 March 2021, Roine Stolt announced two big projects. The Flower Kings are working on a brand new album "in the same innocence" of '' Stardust We Are''. By the end of 2021, Stolt explained that Jonas Reingold could no longer participate in the touring line-up due to his commitments with Steve Hackett's band, but Reingold still plays some of the songs in the studio. On January 7, 2022, the band announced their 15th studio album '' By Royal Decree'' would be released on 4 March 2022, while also announcing that founding member Michael Stolt returned after more than two decades to contribute bass and vocals, splitting duties with current bassist Jonas Reingold. On 8 April 2022,

InsideOut Inside Out Music is a German progressive rock record label originally based in Kleve, North Rhine-Westphalia, and dedicated to the publication of progressive rock, progressive metal and related styles. In 2009, it formed a partnership with Centu ...

and

announced that '' Back in the World of Adventures'' and '' Retropolis'' were getting "remastered and partly remixed". The release date for both was placed on 27 May 2022. ''Stardust We Are'' and ''

'' were also remixed and remastered in June. The 16th studio album, '' Look at You Now'', was announced for an 8 September 2023 release, alongside a European tour about to take place in October 2023. In April 2023, Zach Kamins revealed he left the group due to complicating touring logistics and Daniel Lantz joined for the summer shows. In July, the group mentioned that Lalle Larsson will play for the rest of the upcoming European dates.

Personnel

Current members *

– vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass guitar (1994–present) * Hasse Fröberg – vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, tambourine (1994–present) * Michael Stolt – bass guitar (1994–1999, 2021–present) * Mirko DeMaio – drums (2018–present) * Lalle Larsson – keyboards (2023–present) Former members * Jaime Salazar – drums (1994–2001) * Tomas Bodin – keyboards (1994–2015) *

– bass (1999–2021) * Felix Lehrmann – drums (2011–2015) * Zoltan Csörsz – drums (2002–2004; 2007–2008) *

– vocals, guitars, keyboards (2002–2004) * Marcus Liliequist – drums (2005–2006) * Zach Kamins – keyboards (2018–2023) Guest musicians * Hasse Bruniusson – percussion (1995–present) * Ulf Wallander – saxophone (1995–present) * Håkan Almqvist – sitar (1997) *

Pat Mastelotto Lee Patrick Mastelotto (born September 10, 1955) is an American rock drummer and record producer. He has been a member of King Crimson, Stick Men, Mr. Mister and O.R.k., as well as working as a session drummer with XTC, The Pointer Sisters an ...

– drums (2007) * Erik Hammarström – drums (2008) * Ola Heden – vocals, keyboards, guitar (2008) * Aliaksandr Yasinski – accordion (2022) * Marjana Semkina – vocal (2023) * Daniel Lantz – keyboards (2023)

Timeline

Discography

Studio albums

Live albums * '' Alive on Planet Earth'' (2000) * '' Meet the Flower Kings'' (2003) * ''Instant DeLIVEry'' (2006) * '' Tour Kaputt'' (2011) * ''Live in Europe 2023'' (2024) Official bootlegs * ''Édition Limitée Québec'' (1998) * ''Live in New York – Official Bootleg'' (2002) * ''BetchaWannaDanceStoopid!!!'' (2004) * '' Carpe Diem – The Flower Kings Live in USA'' (2008) Fan Club albums * ''Fan Club 2000'' (2000) * ''Fan Club 2002'' (2002) * ''Fan Club 2004'' (2004) * ''Fan Club 2005 / Harvest'' (2005) Compilations * '' Scanning the Greenhouse'' (1998) * '' The Road Back Home'' (2007) Box sets * ''A Kingdom of Colours'': The Complete Collection From 1995 to 2002 (2017) * ''A Kingdom of Colours II'': The Complete Collection From 2004 to 2013 (2018)

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Flower Kings, The Swedish progressive rock groups Musical groups established in 1994 Symphonic rock groups 1994 establishments in Sweden Inside Out Music artists Century Media Records artists